A Valentine’s Day special from the Investigative Data Desk.
For Ontario students, teachers college losing its lustre
Patrick Cain and Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News : Wednesday, February 13, 2013 11:09 AM
The number of applicants to Ontario teacher’s colleges has dropped in half since 2007, hitting its lowest point in sixteen years.
Data was published in January by the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre, which serves as a clearinghouse for university applications, indicate that 8,199 people applied to Ontario teacher’s colleges this past January, compared to 16,042 in January 2007.
Full story and interactive here.
Ottawa won’t cover costs of new mentally ill offender law
Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News : Tuesday, February 12, 2013 1:05 PM
The federal government has no plans to help provinces with costs associated with its new rules on how to deal with mentally ill offenders.
Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled legislation that would crack down on people found not criminally responsible due to mental disorders. It would establish a “high risk” classification for those who have committed serious crimes and shift emphasis to victim impact when determining how long someone should stay in custody.
If courts and review boards take this legislation to heart it could mean more offenders in provincial forensic hospitals for a longer period of time.
Ottawa won’t pay for them.
Full story here.
Crackdown on mentally ill offenders could overwhelm strained system, critics charge
Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News : Tuesday, February 12, 2013 1:00 PM
Ottawa’s plan to crack down on mentally ill offenders could accomplish the opposite of its intent, critics say – pushing more people with mental illness into a prison system unable to treat them, and putting seriously ill patients in makeshift, less secure accommodation in overflowing forensic hospital wings.
Full story here.
Number of people affected by HRSDC’s student loan data breach could be larger than Ottawa’s claims
Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News : Monday, February 11, 2013 7:01 PM
The cohort of people whose personal information the federal government lost is larger than Ottawa has said.
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada announced last month it lost a flash drive from an office in Gatineau, Que., containing the personal information of more than half a million student loan recipients. The department originally said the data breach only affected people who took out loans between 2000 and 2006. But as a team of lawyers moves forward on a $600-million class action suit, some of those involved say they applied for loans well outside that window.
Full story here.
New Canadians love Quebec; they just can’t work there: Why immigrants are leaving La Belle Province
Fahimeh Sinai and Peyman Rajabian as they prepare to leave their Montreal apartment. Christinne Muschi/Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY – Globe and Mail, Dec. 21, 2012
In the three years since Fahimeh Sinai and Peyman Rajabian left Iran for a new life in Montreal, they have accomplished a lot – earning graduate degrees, touring the Gaspé and obtaining provincially funded therapy for their toddler son. They applied for citizenship as soon as they were eligible.
But they applied from Calgary.
At the end of September, the couple crammed into their sedan with son and belongings to make the long drive west. They had neither jobs nor a place to live. But they were sure it was the right decision.
Omar Khadr: Confessed jihadist, Hunger Games fan
Janet Hamlin
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
October 2, 2012 – Globe and Mail
Curricula for convicted terrorists aren’t the stuff of everyday academia.
So when Omar Khadr’s U.S. legal team asked Arlette Zinck, an English professor at King’s University College in Edmonton, to design and deliver a lesson plan for the Guantanamo Bay detainee, she and her colleagues had their work cut out for them.
Whisked from Guantanamo Bay to Millhaven Institution, Omar Khadr tries to learn the ropes
Janet Hamlin
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY AND COLIN FREEZE
October 1, 2012 – Globe and Mail
Eleven months after Canada pledged to bring him back from Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr’s fate is in the hands of prison officials as the convicted terrorist tries to learn the rules in a home he can’t remember.
The pre-dawn flight via American military aircraft on Saturday that brought the 26-year-old to Ontario from the U.S. naval base where he was imprisoned for nine years and 11 months came as a surprise to Mr. Khadr, his lawyers and his family, who learned of it from television news.
Omar Khadr in Canadian prison after return from Guantanamo Bay
Janet Hamlin
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
September 29, 2012 – Globe and Mail
For the first time in 10 years and three months, Omar Khadr’s fate rests outside the hands of politicians and military personnel.
Toronto-born Mr. Khadr left Guantanamo Bay’s detention centre in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning via U.S. military aircraft. He set foot on Canadian soil just over three hours later.
Inmate, AIDS prevention groups take Ottawa to court over prison needle exchanges
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
September 25, 2012 – Globe and Mail
The federal government is being sued for not providing clean needles to inmates in prisons – something the former inmate and advocacy groups behind the suit argue not only violates offenders’ right to health care but makes a public health problem worse.
a business of misfits 